Sterling Bank commended for supporting Ake Arts, Books Festival

Sterling Bank Plc has received a commendation from poet and novelist Lola Shoneyin who is the founder and Director of the annual Ake Arts and Books Festival.

This year’s edition featured thirty events, including book chats, panel discussions, documentary and film screenings, a poetry video album, an art showcase and a music concert.

The festival curated five intergenerational conversations that reflected the 2021 festival theme: Generational Discordance.

In her closing remarks at this year’s edition of the festival, which was held virtually for the second year because of the Covid-19 pandemic, Shoneyin said, “Having Sterling Bank by our side makes our heads swell. From their commitment to the belief in the transformative power of our stories and for helping us document and archive our ideas, we thank you.”

She said Ake Festival is the envy of cultural entrepreneurs and organisations across the African continent, adding that Sterling Bank has become the code word for companies that support the Arts with sincerity of purpose. “Across the continent, cultural activists often say ‘we need a Sterling Bank’,” she added.

Also speaking, Abubakar Suleiman, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer (MD/CEO) of Sterling Bank Plc, said the bank has continued to support Africa’s biggest literary festival because education is one of the five sectors that the bank is currently concentrating investments in. The other sectors are health, agriculture, renewable energy and transportation.

The three-day festival featured ‘The Life and Times Series’ event with Booker-Prize shortlisted author, Maaza Mengiste, in a conversation with the festival headliner, Professor Abdulrazak Gurnah, who was announced as the winner of the 2021 Nobel Prize for Literature.

Gurnah, a Tanzanian author, spoke about the invasion of East Africa and noted that until recently, most conversations about colonial presence in Africa had always excluded Germany. The Nobel Laureate, however, used his novel as a medium to narrate how Germany established colonies in present-day Namibia, Cameroon, Togo, parts of Tanzania and Kenya as well as Rwanda and Burundi.

According to him, German colonial rule was as brutal as colonial enterprises were in an era known for its oppression and violence. The author, in Afterlives, noted that it was Germany that perpetrated the first genocide of the 20th Century in 1904 and 1908 respectively. The genocide was part of a campaign of ethnic extermination and collective punishment waged by the German Empire against the Herero, the Name and the San in German South-West Africa (now Namibia).

Commenting on this year’s theme; Generational Discordance, Shoneyin said the internet has amplified generational differences in almost every area of African life. “From relationships, love and marriage; spirituality and religion; gender and feminism to politics and activism, the differences in perspective are glaring.

“Where earlier generations of Africans are anchored to their cultural identities, our younger compatriots see themselves as a part of a globalised world. It is easy to assume that our aspirations are poles apart but they are not. Africa cannot afford the luxury of endless culture wars,” she said.